The subject matter disclosed herein relates generally to magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) systems, and more particularly to systems and methods for receiving magnetic resonance (MR) signals from a subject.
MRI systems include a magnet, such as a superconducting magnet that generates a temporally constant (i.e., uniform and static) primary or main magnetic field. MRI data acquisition is accomplished by exciting magnetic moments within the primary magnetic field using magnetic gradient coils. For example, in order to image a region of interest, the magnetic gradient coils are energized to impose a magnetic gradient to the primary magnetic field. Radio-frequency (RF) transmit coils are then pulsed to create RF magnetic field pulses in a bore of an MRI scanner to selectively excite a volume corresponding to the region of interest in order to acquire MR images of the region of interest using a phased array of RF receiver coils. The resultant image that is generated shows the structure and function of the region of interest.
The RF receiver coils within the phased array may interact with each other via mutual inductive coupling caused by an induced current carried by each RF receiver coil in resonance. Such mutual inductive coupling between RF receiver coils may cause or increase cross-talk between RF receiver coils, which may cause artifacts within the resultant image. Mutual inductive coupling between RF receiver coils may also decrease the signal to noise ratio (SNR) of the RF receiver coils and/or the resultant image. Moreover, with parallel imaging in MRI, it has become desirable to increase the number of RF receiver coils within the phased array to provide phased arrays having higher channel counts. However, as the number of channels and/or RF receiver coils in the phased array increases, mutual inductive coupling between RF receiver coils may also increase. Such an increase in mutual inductive coupling may result in further SNR reduction and/or parallel imaging performance degradation, which may offset any benefits of the increased number of RF receiver coils and/or channels within the phased array.